(0)Stifle your screams and fight the urge to crawl into the fetal position if you hope to make it out of Gatlinburg’s scariest haunted house, Ripley’s Haunted Adventure! Avoid the screaming prisoners of the insane asylum cells and resist becoming part of the frightening family as you and your fellow thrill-seekers take on the multiple floors of nightmares. Hold tight to the hand or shoulders of the person in front of you, because getting lost in Ripley’s Haunted Adventure just may be the scare of a lifetime! Push through fresh body bags and sneak past sleeping corpses as you fight your way through the frightening experience!
A Frightening History
In 1991, after the abandoned casket manufacturing business had suddenly shut down and the owners disappeared in 1926, Ripley bought the empty, decrepit building to fill it with even more haunting personality than already lurked within its aged walls. Since then, Ripley’s Haunted Adventure has scared hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Smoky Mountain region.
Inside Ripley’s Haunted Adventure
Enter the creaking iron elevator and stifle your fears as the doors slam behind you. You are left with the not-so-friendly host who ominously greets you before staring blankly beyond you. As you leave the iron shaft, he will drop a last, faint warning or simply leave you to your mounting fears.
Inside the deteriorating walls of this abandoned coffin factory, take calm breaths and slow steps as you enter each room filled with new jumps and terrors. The faint sounds of screaming and chainsaws will haunt each moment as you cautiously push forward through this Freddy Cougar-esque nightmare-come-to-life.
Walk past the decrepit carpenter preparing a coffin for Ripley’s Haunted Adventure’s next victim. Work your way through dark hallways and corridors spattered with fresh blood and creepy crawling cockroaches. Don’t stare at the artwork for too long, or more than the eyes will begin to follow you! With a mixed cast of life-like terrors and actors playing the undead, you and your fellow curious guests are sure to have a frighteningly good time!
A Year-Round Haunt
Open 365 days a year, Ripley’s Haunted Adventure serves up haunts well beyond Halloween. Spend 30 minutes trying to escape in the 10,000-square-foot haunted house full of phobias and paranormal predators. While parents are warned when bringing in younger children, little ones 6 and under are not permitted entry into Ripley’s Haunted Adventure due to the graphic nature of the exhibits.
Other Haunted Houses and Frightening Attractions
Take an entire haunted day tour and hit up all the Smoky Mountain haunted houses and attractions for a truly terrifying adventure! End the night in your cabin’s living room with a scary movie on the big flatscreen TV (and popcorn) as the grand finale to your group’s excitingly eerie day. Here are a few stops you can make on this spine-chilling tour with the ghouls and undead of the Smoky Mountains:
Outbreak: Dread the Undead
Stop the viral outbreak and escape the labs of Chemacorp and their derailed genetic experiments before you become part of the zombified family! Boasted as one of the most technologically advanced interactive zombie attractions in the world, Outbreak: Dread the Undead is filled with hundreds of animatronic, life-like zombies triggered to react to guests scurrying their way to the exits. And don’t forget the live zombie actors! It is the perfect adventure for zombie enthusiasts and thrill-seekers, located next to the Hollywood Wax Museum in downtown Pigeon Forge. Open 365 days a year!
Mysterious Mansion
Make an entire day dedicated to the terrors of the night and visit the Mysterious Mansion before taking your ghost tour. As Gatlinburg’s oldest haunted house, the Mysterious Mansion will test your nerves as you work to make each step farther into the darkness and find your way out of the Mansion’s maddening maze of corridors! You’ll work up a real appetite before heading to dinner and laughing about who screamed the most (because obviously it wasn’t you, right?!).
Castle of Chaos
The Hollywood Wax Museum presents an advanced spin on video gaming, virtual reality, and horrifying fun! Take a seat in the interactive experience theater and put on your goggles to help investigate a paranormal uprising in the Pigeon Forge Castle of Chaos. See dark shadows scurry across the floor in front of your seat, smell the stagnant smells of decay, and hear danger coming before feeling the creatures underneath your feet! You are not left helpless, however; pick up your provided pistol and take out the root cause of all the paranormal unrest!
MORE HAUNTINGS IN GATLINBURG, TN
Much of the fun of haunted houses comes with the fact that they are props and actors, and that nothing really bad actually happened within those walls. But what if we told you Gatlinburg has a haunted history where mayhem and real evil occurred? Come face to face with the harrowing past of this seemingly always happy town while on a tour through the dark streets of Gatlinburg!
Wander the quiet alleys and streets alongside aged brick buildings as you hear the tales of deceit, greed, and murder that still haunt the area of downtown Gatlinburg. The masterful storytelling and theatrics of your guide are sure to pull even the bigger skeptics in on the fun and thrills during the Ghost and Haunt Tours of Gatlinburg!
With two unique tours, Ghost and Haunt offers a guided van tour at 7 p.m. for those with mobility issues or little ones who need to get to bed. The later walking tour begins at 9 p.m. and estimates a 2-hour time allotted for your guided voyage into the dark side of Gatlinburg history. The walking tour even provides professional ghost-hunting equipment for optimal opportunity to come into contact with those lingering through from the other side!
HALLOWEEN TRICKS & TREATS
Halloween Carnival at The Island in Pigeon Forge
Wear your costumes as a family and head to this free festival where the kids can follow the “candy map” for all the trick-or-treating spots! Watch high-flying acrobats soar across the air with the Great Smoky Mountain Wheel in the backdrop. Half-priced rides are rewarded to all those who attend in costume, along with an epic costume contest starting at 6:30 p.m. Watch free entertainment, eat tons of sweets, and enjoy sharing a family-friendly Halloween that is great on the budget!
Dollywood’s Great Pumpkin LumiNights
Laugh and point to your favorite pumpkin art as the Master Carvers in Timber Canyon show off their skills during this family-friendly Halloween celebration! The kids will love navigating their way through the neon lights of the Glow Maze and then sharing a delicious funnel cake or Caramel Apple Sundae. On top of the Halloween festivities, you get all the thrills and excitements of an amusement park with roller coasters, tea cup rides, and so much more!